Here below is the story. It is one of me shamelessly taking the credit for someone else's hard work. The someone else is Pete Neal Dialogue Australia's General Manager and sterling product manager for our Mobile Payments product stream, together with our UK based technical team. Just for the record, Dialogue were shortlisted for two awards and won one. Our other shortlisted entry was our Mobile Site Builder.
There are only 8 awards available for the whole telecoms and internet industries. I think we did very well.
Dialogue
Wins Inaugural ACOMMS Award
12
August 2009, The annual prestigious 2009 Communications
Alliance (ACOMMS) and CommsDay Awards were announced this week with Dialogue
Communications and Singtel Optus winning the inaugural Innovation in Content Delivery and Services through Partnership Award.
Judged by an independent panel of industry
experts, the Award had to demonstrate innovations, clearly show benefits to
consumers and how the content was driving the uptake of services.
Accepting the Award on behalf of Dialogue
Communications, Hugh Spear, CEO of Dialogue said, “It is very rewarding to have
been nominated and then to win this Award against some tough competition. Through our partnership with Optus, consumers
can now make payments for mobile content seamlessly from within their mobile
phone’s WAP browser.”
The off-portal, on-bill WAP billing
solution is based on Optus’ industry leading Atomic Premium Plus platform. The significant benefits derived from this
solution are increased protection and ease of use for consumers.
“By scoping out the consumer experience and
building connectivity to Optus’ Atomic billing engine into
our Mobile Payments solution, we have been able to deliver further consumer
protection to ensure they are fully informed on pricing and terms before each
and every purchase, Hugh Spear said. As
the WAP billing payment pages are hosted by Dialogue, compliance with Optus’
WAP billing guidelines is guaranteed, removing much of the burden of compliance
from the Content Provider. He continued,
“Merchants also see a benefit from increased consumer confidence, leading to
more visits to their mobile content storefronts and higher levels of repeat
purchases.”
Dialogue have signed a number of partners
to the WAP billing solution in Australia and it is expected that this number
will grow significantly through the next year.
Speaking on the market, Hugh Spear said, ”The widespread adoption of WAP
billing has the ability to change the mobile payments landscape in
Australia. He added, “By protecting
customers and lowering support costs the case for its introduction becomes a
compelling prospect for the industry.”
Dialogue is an international leader in the WAP billing space, operating WAP billed solutions across six countries and three continents and was the first accredited payment intermediary for the UK PayForIt scheme. Dialogue is also the sole Billing Aggregation partner for Hutchison Australia’s Bonus Sites WAP billing environment.
For me the significance of this story is that the Australian mobile content market desperately needs some good news. The industry has been damaged by high complaint levels and now a very strict Code of Practice. With current revenue share levels it is difficult for content retailers to do well. This kind of solution tries to give the content providers back the chance to be innovative, but with a clear and easy to understand interface at the point of purchase. In a way it cuts through all the veil of regulations controlling opt-in and subscription charging, by clearly and formally telling the end user what they are about to buy and how much it costs. It is a solution which can really cheer up the Australian market. We now need the other mobile operators to follow the lead from Optus, so that we can provide a true WAP Billing experience to all mobile consumers.
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